Online Model Predictive Control for Trajectory and Beamforming Optimization in UAV-Enabled URLLC

TL;DR

This paper presents a real-time, propulsion-aware model predictive control framework for UAVs that jointly optimizes trajectory and beamforming to enhance ultra-reliable low-latency communication, accounting for finite blocklength effects.

Contribution

It introduces a novel MPC-based approach that incorporates FBL constraints and propulsion dynamics for UAV trajectory and beamforming optimization, improving reliability and disturbance resilience.

Findings

Proposed method outperforms offline MPC and traditional schemes in reliability.

Significant improvements in URLLC performance with interference-aware design.

Quantified effects of antenna scaling, power, and time on FBL reliability.

Abstract

This paper investigates joint trajectory and active beamforming design for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-enabled ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) systems under finite blocklength (FBL) transmission. Unlike conventional Shannon-capacity formulations, the FBL regime introduces a signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR)-dependent dispersion penalty that increases the sensitivity of reliability to mobility-induced channel variations. To address this challenge, we develop a propulsion-aware model predictive control (MPC) framework that performs receding-horizon joint trajectory and multi-user beamforming optimization while enforcing FBL-based rate constraints. The resulting long-horizon nonconvex problem is decomposed into beamforming and trajectory subproblems using alternating optimization. Concave surrogate is constructed for the Shannon-capacity term, while convex approximations are derived for the dispersion term and the nonlinear propulsion power model, yielding tractable convex subproblems solved iteratively. Compared with an offline MPC baseline, where the predictive problem is solved once over the entire mission horizon without feedback updates, and a conventional offline trajectory-beamforming optimization, the proposed closed-loop framework achieves disturbance-resilient mission completion under UAV position disturbances. Simulation results show that, compared with maximum ratio transmission (MRT) and equal-power allocation, the proposed interference-aware design significantly improves URLLC reliability under stringent minimum rate constraints. The results also quantify the impact of antenna scaling, transmit power, and transmission time on FBL performance, providing insights for reliability-centric UAV-enabled wireless networks in 5G and beyond.